


forever isn't enough

by undisguised



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Maiko Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27242419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undisguised/pseuds/undisguised
Summary: Simple moments depicted through seven concepts.//#3. AU:“Why haven’t you turned me in yet?” He asked, voice low. Anybody else would be intimidated by him, but not her, dealing with Azula and Ty Lee had prepared her for anything.She wished she could respond to that but she didn’t have an answer, at least not an adequate one. “I don’t know.”Zuko raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”Mai shrugged. “I was bored by myself.”
Relationships: Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Kudos: 21





	1. #Childhood

“This is probably is the first time I've seen you with your hair down, it’s really long.”

Mai tried to spit her hair out of her mouth, the wind blasted from different directions and her feet were cold beneath the salty water. 

Zuko looked funny as he reemerged over the waves, his hair was up in his usual ponytail except this time it was wet. 

It was the first time she came to ember island as Azula’s guest. Her family had their own house a couple of blocks away from hers. Things changed now, her mother was pregnant and she’s going to be an only child not for much longer. They had been thrilled to hear of Azula’s invitation, probably grateful they had this opportunity to further their agenda, and most specially,  they could get away from their burden of a child for at least of couple of days. Two birds in a stone. 

The wet sand buried her feet, she was dry from her knees and up, meanwhile Zuko played with the waves

Yesterday she had a fight with Azula, so she manipulated Ty Lee and decided to exclude Mai from their activities. Ty Lee, without intending too, revealed Zuko kissed her two weeks ago. She blushed whenever she thought about it, which was constantly. Today was the first day since the incident that she spent with him. 

“Afraid of wetting your hair? Your parents aren’t here, just swim!” He commanded her. 

Mai rolled her eyes, she hated when Zuko forced her to be more ‘adventurous’. She wasn’t like him and he still didn’t understand. 

Zuko raised an eyebrow. 

“The sea is disgusting and it’s too late.”

They had spent all day at the beach, holding hands from time to time, splashing water at each other. Zuko took Mai to a secret place he discovered when he was 9, they were used to staying on the shore of the house but when they had arrived Azula was giving them the silent treatment—Ty Lee too, but her eyes said everything. 

They were supposed to go back before sunset, but the sky was already currently at its highest point, red painted  above the island.  She spent two hours drying herself adn they were still here, so she was furious. Zuko calmed her down, his father didn't care if he arrived so there would be no consequences, he had always been good at helping her break out of her shell, even if she didn't enjoy it most times. Still, she only wet her feet and she regretted it because sand got stuck on her skin as she made it back to her towel. 

Mai sat on it, observing the sky. Zuko ran out of the water and within seconds he had dried himself. She let out a tiny gasp, “You could do that the entire time?”

“Yes, but every time I tried to get near, you ran way.”

Mai sheepishly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

He sat beside her in silence. They contemplated the sky, Zuko deciphered the shape from the clouds, his hands running through the sand, and Mai couldn’t help but think that soon her brother would be arriving. She resented her parents gloating over how he will carry the family name to glory, but she also smiled, the sudden taste of freedom just at the palm of her hand. They had their new toy and she was good at passing shadows, she would no longer be a liability. 

“I was thinking...”

“What?” Mai turned to look at him, always  enthralled by his musings.

“I used to look at my cousin when he was 14 and I used to think he was really mature, now I look at us, and I don’t feel mature at all. I’m supposed to be  Firelord one day, that should be enough but it isn’t.”

“I feel mature. We are. Look at everything we’ve been through. I think that’s part of being a teenager, isn’t it?”

Everything. Sudden deaths and disappearances, new arrivals, betrayals, rivalries. She thought her life had changed the moment she figured out her mother was capable of crying, suddenly everything felt more real and she didn’t like it at all.

Her mother had been pushing her to Zuko her entire life until a few months ago she stopped, she claimed there was no way he could become Firelord, and every time she met Azula after her bending practices she realized that it could be a possibility. Mai looks at Zuko sometimes and wonders if he will ever grow up, he always had his head in the clouds and was too arrogant for his own good. 

Zuko looked over the horizon, taking in what Mai said. “You’re right, maybe it’s because with you I still feel like a kid. I forget about the bad times.”

He had a hopeful look in his face and she smiled, her worries  disappearing with him too. He was her best friend, and now that she’s no longer a kid she’s beginning to understand that what they have is special. Ty Lee always claimed it was something out of the love stories neither Azula or her liked to read. 

She didn’t fight it anymore; he wrapped his arm over her shoulder and she positioned her head under his chin. Without a single word they knew things from here on out would be different, like a last piece of puzzle fitting in, just like that, they were linked together and nothing or anyone would change that. 


	2. #Izumi

It would be a lie if Zuko said he hadn’t been crying himself to sleep these past two months, because he definitely did that. Yes, every single night. 

He buried himself in his work all day and by night he focused on all the things he said and shouldn’t have said. 

Most specifically, when he blurted out ‘I love you’ as she handed him this year’s new budget strategy.

He had said that to Mai and now he hasn’t heard from her in two months, all the hawks he sent after her returned empty handed. He had officially driven her away with his feelings, despite promising to each other it wouldn’t happen. 

The years had told them they weren’t a good fit, so they kept things light and breezy because despite those differences, they couldn’t stay away from each other. Sokka called it friends with benefits, according to him it was modern lingo, but Zuko didn’t like it, he found it reductive towards what they have. Or had.

Or rather towards what he felt, because he was the one that was in love, meanwhile Mai was the one that fled, not bothering to say goodbye in the morning. Now he truly understood what she felt when he gave her that letter.

The first thing he did every morning was go straight to his office. This time had been different, he found a big surprise. 

Mai was standing over the window, hand lifting the curtain as she observed the courtyard. Her hair was mostly down with a hair piece holding the rest up. 

He thought about this moment more often than he would like to admit, he had decided on playing it cool, but it was all out the window now. “Mai!” He sprinted up to her. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said that!” She turned to face him, her face with steady blankness. “I was an idiot and I forgot about our agreement and-”

“I'm pregnant.”

And just like that, the walls began to close in, his pulse went quicker, and suddenly he fell into the ground. Everything pitch black.

“ _ Zuko! _ ” 

Mai was hovering over him, gaze filled with concern. Turns out he had fainted. 

“How long was I out?” He asked, voice groggy, eyes slowly opening. 

Mai sighed with relief. “Just five seconds, you’ll be fine.”

“Oh.”

With a speedy recovery, they walked side by side through the corridors in silence. Mai carried herself with poise, perfect posture and head held high, she wore casual clothing yet she made every item look expensive. Anybody they bumped in greeted her with joy, glad she had come back from her ‘vacation’. She had come a long way from her days of lurking in the shadows and proved to be an excellent economist. Math and ridiculously hard assignment had always been her thing.

“So... Um... the kid- I mean, the father, uh...”

Mai raised an eyebrow. “Whose do you think it is?”

“I was hoping you would tell me that.”

She rolled her eyes and sped her pace up, Zuko tried to catch up with her. That simple action resumed their whole dynamic this past year. He was a sucker for her and she just moped his tears off the floor with him. He used to remember those time where he had the upper hand, but they grew up and she decided she would not put up with him anymore, which in turn made him fall deeper and deeper for her. 

They sat over the fountain they danced around in for years, first kisses, fights and declarations were made in here. It was a symbol of their love, which he knew Mai didn’t like because she thought it was too anticlimactic (“Why can’t it be jail? We both went to jail,” she complained one afternoon as she bandaged his knee). 

He observed her bare face, afraid to miss a single detail in case she’d run off again. “If it wasn’t clear, you are the father, obviously."

Hearing her say that made something flutter inside of him, then drop. A thousand of emotions blended in together, he couldn’t sit on a single one. “Y-Yeah, of course I knew.”

Zuko wanted to be happy for their future child, but that was up to Mai as much as he wished he could carry the baby instead—Too weird? His brain couldn’t make rational connections when he was nervous. 

They weren't married, they weren’t even properly dating. She left and suddenly came back. She didn’t want kids; she just wanted to work and live her life. He wouldn’t call her a free spirit; she just didn’t want to be controlled anymore. 

“We’ll have to get married,” Mai said with her usual dour tone,  apparently, she loved to use it when handling difficult subjects.

Zuko’s mouth opened, the words stuck in his mouth for a few second. “What? But I thought...” He trailed off.

He didn’t expect for all this to happen today, or ever. 

Mai sighed and got up in front of him, unveiling her mask. “Zuko, I left because everything hit me at once. Ty Lee urged I go visit her this past year but I was too busy working with you, then one day I started having morning sickness and I decided to ignore it but then I saw you and you said _ that _ and next thing I knew I was on a boat. I guess some of you might have rubbed off on me if I did that.”

Zuko just sat there, having trouble processing everything. Mai left, she’s back, she’s pregnant, she gave him the strangest proposal in his life, and he’s still most definitely in love with her. 

“Ty Lee knew what happened the minute I stepped on that island and I was exhausted, I told her I didn’t want to go through with this. I had a portrait of what my life was going to be in the future and you weren’t in it,” Mai confessed. His heart sunk but suddenly she grabbed his hand and extended his fingers, fingetips feeling on their firmness. She splayed his hand her stomach. “And neither was this.”

Zuko stared at her eyes, soft and glossy, glimmering with emotion. His hearth thumped as he felt that for the first time in  years, despite currently confiding with each other, she could truly be herself in  front of him.

She continued speaking, “But I realized that I couldn’t punish myself for my parent's mistakes and that I couldn’t punish you forever for the mistakes we both made when we were younger. I want this, I thought I didn’t, but now I'm sure.” She caressed his cheek, looking at him lovingly. “With you, because I love you.”

Without a single word Zuko stood up, cupping Mai’s face. She was the most beautiful thing he has ever seen but now she was simply divine. Everything was perfect for a moment—he didn’t think about what they would tell their friends, he didn’t think about the advisor’s reaction to their pre-marital affair, he didn’t think about the wedding, nor the public’s reaction. 

He didn’t think about his mother and her terrible parenting with a big heart, he didn’t think about his father and the amount of pain he inflicted on everything he touched. 

He kissed her, hoping it would showcase everything he couldn’t say. She reciprocated, wrapping her arms around him, savoring the taste of his lips. The  dozens of servants working in the garden refrained from looking but it was far too scandalous to ignore. 

Zuko didn’t care, and surprisingly neither did she. He lifted her up and spun them around with glee. “I can’t believe this.” He kissed her again and again and again. “I love you, and the baby.  _ Our baby. _ ”

“Zuko... I’m scared,” she said, the words leaving her lips with ease. Even after all these years, the only person she could be this open with was Zuko. 

“Me too, but let’s not think about that yet.” 

He kissed her again, relishing on their state of bliss. He thinks about the kids they used to be, who used to be sure they were uncapable of loving and being loved. But in the end, they proved everyone they were wrong, most specially themselves.


	3. #AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Mai isn't Azula's childhood friend, just the equivalent of a high school friend in-verse.

Mai had only seen Zuko once before. It had been the first time she visited the palace, and the first time Azula called her a ‘friend’. 

Back then she already had started to rebel against her parent's expectations, so she wasn’t in the mood to drool over meeting the crown prince. But even she had been surprised, he was beautiful and charming, and arrogant, and adventurous, and she was angry at herself for taking small glimpses of his face every time she could. 

The boy standing in front of her wasn’t that person anymore. Hair all over the place, permanent frown complementing his stare, body rugged and malnourished, and a big red blotch covering half of his face. 

“Why haven’t you turned me in yet?” He asked, voice low. Anybody else would be intimidated by him, but not her, dealing with Azula and Ty Lee had prepared her for anything. 

She wished she could respond to that but she didn’t have an answer, at least not an adequate one. “I don’t know.” 

Zuko raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know?” 

Mai shrugged. “I was bored by myself.” 

“That’s not a reason,” he muttered between gritted teeth. 

“It is to me.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, that, and your sister is on my nerves.” 

When she accepted Azula’s little proposal on a world tour chase of the avatar she thought it would be an exciting adventure, but couldn’t she have been more wrong. Turns out whatever she thought was cool about Azula ceased to exist and she had fully transformed into an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur. Thing had taken a big turn when she realized that Ty Lee, who she had found insufferable back in the day, became the only tolerable thing in this trip, and that was saying a lot because she could do without her endless meddling into her psyche. 

The trio had split in efforts to optimize their search for the avatar when she found Zuko half-dead beneath a tree on the outskirts of a village. The only logical step was turning him in. At first, she thought about the hundreds of gold coins she would be bathing in as her parents groveled at her feet for forgiveness, but then, she realized their bounty chase would be over and she would have to go back to permanently living in the dreadful city of Omash—err, New Ozai. 

“I don’t trust you,” Zuko stated as he observed the soup in front of him. 

“Of course, it would be stupid if you did.” Starting with the fact that she wasn’t keeping him alive for giggles, she was just thinking of what the best next step would be. As much as it pained her to say, she had never killed a man before and she didn’t want the former crown prince’s blood running through the hands of someone else. “But if I wanted to kill you, I would throw a knife in your throat and let you bleed to death. Poison is _such_ a mood killer.” 

Zuko just stared at her blankly, but she listened to the way he swallowed. He was nervous—and that was the inadequate answer she had in mind, seeing him squirm was the most exciting thing she had seen so far in her life. An outlaw prince under her grip, her parents were wrong when they said she wouldn’t amount to anything. As far as she was concerned, the only impressive thing Tom-Tom did was not die from all the things he put in his mouth. 

They ate in complete silence, each one focused on their plate. When Zuko finished he dropped the bowl to the ground, not knowing what else to do since his body seized with a giant copper rope against the tree. Thankfully Azula had a big budget because she wasn’t going to use her more rare knives just to keep him in place. 

She managed to ignore him at first, but he’d been staring at her fixatedly for the last couple of minutes and it made her jaw clench. “What is it?” 

“Nothing...” 

“Then why are you staring?” 

He huffed. “I don’t have anything else to do.” 

“Well, look somewhere else then.” 

“Too bad because I won’t,” He said defiantly. 

Mai frowned. She thought about turning around to spite him, but that’s probably what he wanted, to distract her so he could escape. 

“Why are you helping my sister if you hate her so much?” 

He loved to ask questions, didn’t he? “I don’t hate her.” 

“Could have fooled me...” He rolled his eyes. “Besides that, it’s weird you’re doing this. I thought you’d be married by now.” 

Mai resisted the urge to not choke on the canned garbage Azula gave her as food. She took offense to that accusation but instead of letting him know she decided to mess with him. “I would be if you hadn’t decided to betray your country.” 

Zuko’s jaw dropped. “What?” 

Mai smirked behind her gloved hand. “Oh, so you didn’t know about that?” She’s starting to realize she’s spending too much time with Azula. 

“Whatever. Either way I wouldn’t have let that happen,” he declared with pettiness. 

Mai crossed her arms and looked to the side. “That dreadful am I?” She asked, feigning disappointment. Now she’s also realizing she’s spending too much time with Ty Lee, there’s no one that could confuse men better than her friend did. 

Zuko widened his eyes and stammered. “N-no, you’re pretty. I mean, sort of. I mean—” he trailed off, getting flustered. 

She raised both eyebrows with a look of satisfaction and he figured out she was messing with him. He groaned in frustration. 

Mai finished her bowl and set it to the side. “No more questions, I’m going to sleep now.” She looked inside Azula’s survival kit that sat next to her sleeping lizard. “And don’t think about doing something funny. That rope is fireproof.” 

Zuko rolled his eyes and decided to look elsewhere. 

With his big mouth shut, now everything was much quieter, the only sounds being those of crickets, his heavy breathing and the snores of her half-pet-half-transportation-method and Zuko’s ostrich horse. 

She tried to sleep but the ground was too uncomfortable and she shivered constantly. Enough so, that Zuko noticed. “You’re cold,” he mumbled. 

“I’m always cold,” she answered, even though now more than ever, as she was curled in a ball with her only blanket, trying to generate some heat. 

“I can make you a fire if you want.” 

Mai opened one eye to look at him. “I said no funny business.” 

He scoffed and Mai shut her eye again, except this time she felt an orange light in the corner of the dark. She opened it slightly again and realized he held a flame in his hand. Nice to know chivalry wasn’t dead... _yet._

Despite that, she tossed and turned for almost an hour, having trouble sleeping on the forsaken ground. She was used to soft mattresses and silk linens; this was terrible for her sleeping schedule. She resented Zuko, he was standing against a trunk and he was sleeping soundly. 

She tried for another hour, then thought about how inside the village there was probably a fire nation station waiting for her and willing to pamper her with fruit tarts and soft pillows. Keeping Zuko hostage was proving to be a stupid idea so far. 

What was she supposed to with him? If she killed him, then Azula would probably kill her for not getting to kill him. If she turned him in, then neither of them would get the chance to kill him because Ozai will. If she brought him to his sister alive then she would have to be willing to endure the next few hours against the dry soil. 

But then she remembered. Her orders were to capture the avatar not Zuko, and if she let him go it would be more likely he’d end up just as dead as she found him in a couple of days, and she would be sleeping in an extremely comfortable bed. Oh, decisions, decisions. 

She rolled her eyes and took off the blanket. She walked up to Zuko and he woke up with the sound of her steps. He looked like he wanted to say something but was to confused to do so. “You can go, I got bored of you,” she said monotonously as she slashed the rope in a single clean cut with one of her knives. 

Dumbfounded, he began to walk away slowly, not keeping his eyes away from her in case she had something up her sleeve. He tried to get past her, to grab his swords, but she held a hand against his chest. “Those are mine now. Think of it as a trade.” 

He raised his brow, he looked both stunned and suspicious. “That’s fair.” He walked up to his ostrich horse instead and mounted him. He stared down at her, questioning her sudden change of mind. “Why are you letting me walk away?” 

“I thought I said no more questions.” 

He didn’t move, waiting for an answer. 

“Fine. I hate sleeping on the ground.” 

“Makes sense,” he confirmed, grabbing the reins. “Thanks.” 

“Don’t. It was pure luck, but if I see you again, I will kill you,” She promised non-chalantly, arms crossed. 

“Sure,” he said with a tiny wisp of amusement in his voice. He pulled the rains and his ostrich horse took off with him, brown dust flowing off the ground. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm probably using this prompt incorrectly.


End file.
